Letters | 25 June 2015

Free trade with Africa

Sir: Nicholas Farrell suggests that a naval blockade is the only solution to Italy’s immigration crisis (‘The invasion of Italy’, 20 June). Examining the causes of the situation might identify other measures.

Since the European Union effectively closed its borders to trade with Africa to protect European farmers from lower food prices, the agricultural economies of most African countries have been in decline.

Of course there is another reason for Africa’s decline. About 60 years ago, the Europeans found it convenient to convince themselves that in Africa self-government was better than good government. It followed that aid would be a convenient substitute for the risks or inconveniences of free trade. But the African dictators who emerged soon after were able to finance their corrupt and callous regimes on the beneficence of European taxpayers. Their own countries’ tax revenues were of no consequence and they dwindled.

Surely, therefore, what the EU needs to do is open its borders to free trade with Africa. This would be a first step towards the revival of Africa’s agricultural industries. Aid in all its forms should be denied to dictators (even those sheltering behind democratic facades), which will force them into policies beneficial to the revival of their own tax revenues. The loss of Europe’s common agricultural policy would be a small price to pay for the folly of African policies of the past. Free trade and no aid might not be popular, but it could benefit both Africans and Europeans.
Nigel Bruce
King’s Lynn, Norfolk

Take Hong Kong

Sir: It is not entirely true to say that ‘currency unions do not work unless there is full political and economic union’ (Leading article, 20 June). Ever since 1983, Hong Kong has prospered while being effectively in currency union with the United States via a strict currency board mechanism.